To Make Good of What's Left
by TheBombYo
Summary: Ichigo Kurosaki, once a well respected shinigami, now left as a hollow in the lands of Hueco Mundo. Join us as we see him carve out a niche as the new leader of this hellhole, with friends new and old.


The moon shone softly upon the bone white sands of Hueco Mundo, as a strong desert breeze blew through the land of the dead. If one listened closely, they could hear the marching of the thousands of gillians below the sandy floors in the forest of menos. As usual, one could hear the sound of hollows being eaten and feel the violent spiritual pressure of some of the more powerful menos and arrancars. Trudging through the sand, one Vasto Lorde class menos walked with a weary gait, his nightmarish visage in direct contrast to the tired and casual aura he carried himself with. Sitting himself harshly upon the ground (careful not to sit on his tail) the lizard-like hollow let a soft garbled sigh slip through the fiendish smile of his hollow mask. Thinking back on his fight with Aizen (something that happened almost two months ago, at least) and how he was supposed to have lost all of his reiryoku, not just his shinigami abilities, Ichigo Kurosaki let one thought slip from his inner monologue and into the cold, static emptiness of Hueco Mundo

"This fucking blows."

True enough, Ichigo Kurosaki, hero of the winter war, saviour of the soul society and vice-president of his schools "Shakespeare Appreciation Society" (SAS for those in the know) had indeed not actually lost his spiritual powers but had in fact become the first soul in history to go straight to Vasto Lorde right after dying. He had a few theories about how this had happened, mostly he just figured that he was too badass for anything else to have happened but, in all honesty, he assumed that it was because he had an already Vasto Lorde level spiritual pressure when he died. This was both good and bad because although it meant that he barely had to hunt and eat other hollows to survive, it also meant that he couldn't just pop into the soul society and explain what happened. Sure, he figured some would believe him but without any definitive proof he would just look like the worlds most retarded hollow thinking he could score a favour from there worst enemies. He sighed, once more lamenting the fact that he had to look like a creature from an H.P Lovecraft nightmare instead of something a little more human.

"Never thought I'd say this, but I sure wish Aizen was still around. At least then I could fool him into using the hogyoku on me so I could at least go visit my family or something." Said Ichigo, looking up at the great moon of Hueco Mundo as if it could speak to him.

"That's good to hear, Kurosaki, makes our job a hell of a lot easier."

"Holy shit! Did the moon just actually speak to me? I knew it! I fucking knew it! If your heart is pure and you believe then anything is possible!" Exclaimed Ichigo, as he childishly pumped his fists in the air and let out a bellow excitement.

"Jesus Christ, this is the guy who's gonna lead us from now on? We might as well just send over a preliminary surrender to the shinigami already!"

Ichigo turned around as he felt several immense spiritual pressures buzz in behind him, the tell-tale sound of the arrancar high-speed technique sonido. Recognizing these signatures, Ichigo quickly lit up at familiar faces around him. Standing before Ichigo, were, until recently, five of the strongest enemies he had ever come across. They were, Grimmjow Jaggerjaquez, the former sexta espada and an opponent Ichigo had faced multiple times in the winter war. Neliel tu Odelschvank, former tercera until she had had her mask damaged, reverting her to a child like form and condemning her to a life in the lands of Hueco Mundo. Apparently this had somehow been corrected, as she now stood before him in her adult form.

"Ichigoooooo! I'm so happy! We were looking for you for forever! You were impossible to find! It was like, every time we had a lock on you, you'd disappear from us!" Said Nel, apparently unfazed by Ichigo's horns as she shoved his masked face into her generous chest. Once she had been reassured by Ichigo that he missed her too, and wasn't trying to run away, she let him fall back down onto the ground, giving him a chance to see who else had appeared with them.

Standing next to Grimmjow was the effeminate arrancar that had briefly taken his place when he had lost his arm, the former replacement espada, Luppi Antenor, just stared at Ichigo with an unusually serious look upon his face, causing Ichigo to start to wonder why they were all here.

"Yes, Kurosaki Ichigo, your probably wondering why we've been looking for you, considering just a short time ago, we were sworn enemies." Said Kaname Tosen, former squad 9 captain and apparent lieutenant of Aizen's army. It seemed to Ichigo that the blind shinigami had somehow recovered from Aizen's attempt on his life and, in the process, lost much of his shinigami nature. His mask broken so that it only covered his eyes, much like his old visor, and a hollow hole had now taken shape in the middle of his stomach. Ichigo slowly dusted himself off and stared at the traitor, thinking over his words carefully before answering "well, considering what Grimmjow just said, I don't feel I'd be too far off thinking that you wanna make me an arrancar." Ichigo then subtly raised his reiatsu, directing too the assembled group of arrancar "the only question I have really, is why?"

"I believe I can answer that." Replied the former tercera espada, Tier Haribel, as she slowly approached Ichigo, trying to placate the hollow boy's suspiciousness. "There are two reasons, really, the first is to payback a debt to your friends, for healing me and my fraccion."

"A debt huh? Sounds like Inoue has been busy since I died." Ichigo said, a mountain of pride could be heard in his tone.

Even against former enemies, his friends still helped those in need.

Under her collar, Haribel smirked "indeed, after healing me, my fraccion and Tosen here, she asked if it would be possible for us to find you and keep you safe. We figured turning you into an arrancar would be killing two birds with one stone."

Under his mask, Ichigo's eyebrows rose up, "two birds? How so?"

At this Haribel once again turned deadly serious "the second reason we wanted to turn you into an arrancar is because we're building an army. An army that we need you to lead."

Ichigo's spiritual pressure immediately shot up and his stance turned hostile, ready to fight at a moments notice if he didn't like the answer "alright, you have five seconds to gimme an answer that doesn't piss me off before I kill the lot of you. Why the fuck would you wanna build an army after we just had a gigantic fucking war?! Are you looking for revenge? If that's the case then you can all go to hell!" Ichigo seethed, his hollow instincts flaring at the thought of them trying to recruit him into there giant war with the shinigami. Ichigo paused for a moment as he looked over at Nel, who had placed her hand on his shoulder, "please Ichigo, just listen, I promise it isn't to start a war. In fact, it's to prevent more violence from happening."

"Yes Kurosaki Ichigo, if there is one thing my eyes see, it is the path with the least amount of bloodshed" answered Tosen stepping in to continue filling in the young Vasto Lorde as to their plans "it is for this attitude, and for your power, that we need you to lead us for this to work."

Ichigo breathed slowly, in and out, until he felt his anger subside a bit "alright, convince me then, why should I lead this army your putting together? What possible reasoning could you have for needing me?" Ichigo asked, directing a cold stare at Tosen.

"Before Aizen came to Hueco Mundo, this place was chaos, a place ruled only by fear of shinigami attacks, and survival of the fittest." Explained Harribel, picking up where Tosen had left off, "if it wasn't attacks by the Gotei 13, it was attacks by our fellow hollows, trying to devour each other to hopefully gain enough power so they wouldn't have to live in fear anymore"

"Of course, that was impossible" continued Grimmjow, "y'see Kurosaki, no matter how strong you get there was always someone stronger, someone faster, who was gonna take away your throne and turn you into just another meal" Grimmjow scoffed "even hollows as strong as us were useless against Aizen. Even if we could have killed him, some other hollow would eat you before you even had a chance to heal." He grimaced, "bunch of cowards."

"That was before Aizen came and brought order to this place, giving us all purpose and a sense of meaning. Don't get me wrong, it was still terrible and unnecessary blood was spilled everyday, but at least if you stayed in line, you always had a place to shake things off at the end of the day." Grimmjow finished, looking Ichigo dead in the eyes.

"Now though, with Aizen dead, the vacuum of power he left behind has everyone vying for his throne. We've all been trying to keep the peace but we need a power like Aizen's to keep everyone in line. Hollows follow power, but we need someone benevolent enough to only use this power to help keep the order in Hueco Mundo. Not for their own selfish reasons." Added Luppi, finally contributing to the conversation.

" I, we, believe that someone is you, Ichigo." Finished Nel, a small smile settled on her face as she gazed expectantly at our protagonist, "you've proven your strength by not only defeating Aizen but by becoming possibly the strongest Vasto Lorde in the history of Hueco Mundo right after your death, and you've proven your benevolence so many times it would take us forever just to list them all!" She smiled again, this time letting it show all her teeth "we know this can work Ichigo, with your help, anything is possible!"

Ichigo looked over the gathered arrancar, surprised to see all of them staring intently at him, Grimmjow even had a smirk on his face. The young hollow boy breathed in deep, steeled his shoulders and confidently answered them

"Alright then, make me an arrancar!"

Tosen smiled "I knew you wouldn't let us down Kurosaki Ichigo, your reputation as a guardian is truly deserved." He quickly took out a familiar looking purple orb from a pocket on his coat, causing Ichigo to go wide eyed.

"Is that-" Ichigo started, before Tosen cut him off with a hand gesture

"Yes and no. This is a replica of the hogyoku made by Aizen according to some notes left behind in Las Noches's throne room. I've created it using reiatsu sample from all of us gathered here and some of the reiryoku from the thousands of arrancar clones left in Szayel's lab. The only difference is that this hogyoku can only create stable arrancar just as well as the last one, but has no sentience, hence it cannot grant one's true hearts desire like Urahara Kisuke's or the one originally created by Aizen." Explained Tosen, causing Ichigo to sag his shoulders in relief "it also needs the reiatsu signatures of all the espada to activate, thus if we ever wish to create new arrancar we all must agree to it." Tosen then held the orb out in his hand, as all the gathered hollows, minus Ichigo, placed there hands underneath Tosen's and started to pour reiatsu into it, causing it to glow a warm violet. Grimmjow smirked "there it is Kurosaki, all you gotta do is place your hands on top of the thing, and get ready to be part of the family!"

Ichigo couldn't help but grin "sounds good, let's see what this thing is made of!" Ichigo confidently strode towards the ball and placed his hand over the hogyoku, a cocky smirk adorned his face as he did so.

It was quickly replaced by an open mouthed scream.

All of the arrancar stayed silent as massive waves of red tinted black spiritual pressure flowed off of Ichigo, decimating all that stood behind him for an untold length. A short amount of time passed and the energy slowly began to converge into a small person sized sphere, which started to crack until it completely shattered, leaving a groaning, and naked, Ichigo Kurosaki left on the smouldering desert floor.

Grimmjow scoffed as he went over to Ichigo and picked him up, throwing him over his shoulder, "c'mon Kurosaki, we gotta teach ya how to fight like us and build an army, and we ain't got a lot of time to do it in." Grimmjow quickly sonidoed back to Las Noches, the four other espada following him as he left, all of them excited at the new prospects this would bring to the hell scape that was Hueco Mundo.

1 year later

Ichigo Kurosaki, the new primera espada and commander for the new arrancar army, slowly paced down the halls of the recently rebuilt Las Noches. His white, with black in linings, trench coat slowly trailed behind him, as did his long orange pony tail, which he left flowing over the high collar of his coat. On his face was his trade mark scowl, made that much more intimidating by his serious looking golden eyes, long red estigma that matched the marks on his original hollow mask, and the left horn jetting out of his temple, the only part that remained of his mask. His hollow hole was bared for the whole world to see, as was the large number one tattooed in black on his right pectoral. The red sash he wore so that he could keep his zanpakuto, a black sheathed chokuto, all over the standard white pants and black boots of the arrancar.

"Dordonni" Ichigo said, acknowledging the presence of his proteger, or second-in-command, of his fraccion.

"Yes, Lord Kurosaki." Asked Dordonni del Alessandro Soccacio, halting his footsteps to meet up with his commander. It wasn't long after Ichigo had returned from his training that he had immediately made Dordonni his first fraccion, and his right hand man. Dordonni's respect for Ichigo had skyrocketed from that day forward, not only respecting his power, but the way he treated them all, hollow, arrancar or shinigami, with respect. It didn't take long for Dordonni to quickly prove his worth to Ichigo, and the two now had one of the strongest bonds amongst subordinates in the new, but fast growing army.

"While I'm in the meeting, I need you to tend to training the new numeros, I trust our fraccion to keep up, but I think these new hollows need to be reminded every now and again just what they signed up for." Ichigo continued walking, his pace picking up as he knew Dordonni would follow "also don't forget to set aside some time for yourself as well, you've most definitely earned it, I also have something I wanna teach you something I think would go well with your fighting style." Ichigo smirked, turning to Dordonni, "think your up for the challenge?"

Dordonni returned Ichigo's smirk "please, nino, there hasn't been a technique yet you've thrown at me I haven't learned with gusto!"

Ichigo laughed at that "true enough, anyways Dordonni, I have to go now, please remember what I said and try not to work the numeros to death again."

Dordonni scoffed "I shall try Lord Kurosaki but if they are so weak as to fall to my training then they truly do not deserve a place in our army!"

Ichigo shook his head "whatever, I'll see you after the meeting is done" Ichigo nodded as Dordonni left in a blur of sonido and walked through the giant doors into the meeting chambers.

Ichigo looked down at the five other occupants in the room and couldn't help but feel impressed at the members of the elite group of hollows. After Ichigo had been made the primera and had trained his new skills to an acceptable level, they had all taken a six month training break to hone there skills and recruit as many hollows as possible. The training had been intense, to say the least, especially when Ichigo had told them about the second release of there zanpakuto's that he had experienced when he fought Ulquiorra. This had sent them all into a mad rush to not only perfect there resureccion, but to also somehow attain this Segunda Etapa.

"Well, well, look who finally decided to grace us with his presence. Finally found the place did ya?" Smirked Grimmjow, proudly displaying the large five tattooed on the left side of his neck. Ever since he had returned from his Segunda Etapa training with Ichigo, the two had developed a sort of friends/rival relationship with each other, usually trading barbs and sarcastic comments when they weren't trading punches and kicks. Ichigo laughed before taking his seat at the front of the table, "sorry, sorry" said Ichigo, his shoulders squaring as he took on a more commanding tone "I was busy with the new numeros, I swear to god hollows only get lazier when they become arrancar." Ichigo looked down at his fellow espada waiting for the slight murmur to die down. "Anyways, there are more important matters to attend too, Tosen, you said you had a message from Soul Society about a rampaging hollow that you feel would be perfect for the position of septima espada. Has there been any news on that front?"

The new tercera espada rose from his seat as he pressed a button in the middle of the table, allowing a large hologram of a green haired arrancar to appear from the middle of the table, "yes actually, though rampaging hollow might have been a bit of misinformation on my part. The arrancar you see before you is named Arturo Plateado, one of the first ever arrancar and a former adjuchas class hollow. Over 1000 years ago, he was sealed by original Gotei 13 under the sokyoku after he foolishly attacked the seiretei. Ever since the sokyoku was destroyed by our primera during the ryoka invasion he has been slowly but surely absorbing the broken reiatsu into himself. Currently, even though he is still trapped underneath the sokyoku hill, he has been causing tremors throughout Soul Society using nothing more then his spiritual pressure." He continued "according to my readings and with what little information I can gather from Soul Society, he seems to be getting closer to breaking through the barrier over his prison, the Captain-Commander has of course re-enforced the Kido that has been trapping him but, unfortunately, I fear that if he uses his resureccion that explosion of reiatsu that usually accompanies such a release will be too much for the current restraints to hold."

Ichigo frowned at this information, as much as he wanted to fill the ranks of the Espada, he wasn't thrilled at having to use a criminal of Soul Society "he certainly seems more then strong enough to fill one of the vacant spots, but I have to ask, do you think it's a good idea to use such a criminal in our organization. I mean, worst case scenario, the Gotei 13 could take this as an act of war."

Haribel nodded at this, adding "agreed, despite his strength and the fact that his old age would most likely mean his wisdom is without question, how do we know he isn't bitter towards the seireitei for his years of imprisonment? How do we know he even shares our dream of order? Old hollows such as him are usually firmly planted in the 'survival of the fittest' school of thought. I think we can all agree that such a Darwinian mindset has no place in the Espada." She finished, the new segunda leaning back as she stared down Tosen with a thoughtful look in her eyes.

Tosen nodded at this "both of you make excellent points, though I do believe I have an answer for both of your questions. I believe that this hollows centuries of isolation have made it somewhat starved for companionship, simply extending the hand of friendship would be more than enough to stave off any bitterness and rage felt towards the shinigami, at least until we can bring it back here to Las Noches. Once here, I believe I simple display of power and an explanation of our mission should help in bringing him into our fold. From what information I could get from the older hollows in the badlands, it seems that Arturo had once attempted to unite Hueco Mundo before, so I feel he will sympathize with our cause."

Nel sighed, looking up with a childish pout on her face "well that's one problem solved, only other problem is that we have no way of knowing how the shinigami will take it. Like Ichigo said, this could be seen as an act of aggression, we can't even get them to acknowledge us as an organization, let alone release a prisoner to us as an act of good faith" the new cuatro espada sighed once again, this time letting her head fall and hit the hard marble of the throne rooms table. "We might be royally boned this time guys."

The rest of the Espada all frowned at this. Despite Neliel's less then stellar choice of words to describe the situation, it didn't change the fact that they were more or less correct. Any attempts to reach some sort of clemency with the shinigami had been rebuked before they even had a chance to be heard. Despite them not even knowing all of the members of the new Espada, the wounds from the winter war were still too fresh to even consider making an alliance with hollows, despite how powerful they were. Hollows were the enemy of shinigami, and it seemed that no matter what they did they just couldn't get through to the Gotei 13 that they were different.

The new sexta Espada, on the other hand, had just gotten an idea as to solve there little conundrum "well, it's not like it matters if we go there or not, I mean, at this rate they won't even acknowledge us. Why should we try and be nice about it, when all they've done as of late is turn us down and threaten us with violence? If we could just get into Soul Society, all we'd have to do is grab him and run."

The dangerous thought had hung out there in the air, tempting the gathered Espada. To get everyone's mind off of the idea, Ichigo quickly asked Tosen a follow up question to there prized arrancar "how was he able to absorb the sokyoku? If I recall, that thing had the power of a million zanpakutos."

Tosen clicked another button, causing the hologram to centre in on the zanpakuto attached to the mans waist. "Ah. That would be the result of his zanpakuto fenix. It has the ability to absorb the spiritual energy of any opponent it kills. I imagine it had a similar effect towards the sokyoku, it being a simple mass of reiatsu in its transformed state."

Ichigo steepled his fingers in front of his face as he processed this new information. To go after a criminal of the Soul Society would no doubt be seen as a less then friendly gesture by the Gotei 13. Despite how powerful Las Noches had become in such a short time, he knew a war with the Soul Society was the last thing anyone here wanted. In addition to the fact that the hollows were trying to ally themselves with the stubborn shinigami, he also knew that if central 46 were to order it, they'd probably be forced to annihilate the fast growing army.

As its leader and strongest member, Ichigo would rather die then let that happen.

On the other hand, if the Espada didn't fill out there ranks soon, then it would only be a matter of time before those fools in central 46 took it upon themselves to wipe out what they figured would be a rising threat to their power. Despite the fact that this arrancar had a lot of shinigami blood on his hands, it didn't really make him any different then people like Tosen, Luppi or Grimmjow. All of whom were high ranking and trusted members of the Espada. A show of force might even dissuade the shinigami from attacking for a little while.

Besides, Ichigo smirked, he always was a rule breaker...

Steeling himself, Ichigo instantly stood from his seat as he shifted back into the tone he took when commanding the five strongest hollows in Hueco Mundo. He turned to Tosen "Kaname, I want you to contact Kisuke Urahara, tell him Ichigo Kurosaki needs a favour and he needs it immediately." Turning to Grimmjow, he said "I need you to recall the exequias tell them to halt all current operations, on direct order of the Primera Espada. Tell them it's urgent." After this he addressed the remains three Espada "I want the rest of you to inform your proteger and fraction that they are in charge while we are gone. Tell them to keep order and above all else, they are to guard Las Noches with there lives." All of the Espada's eyes widened at this proclamation, with Grimmjow and Luppi having smirks that threatened to split their faces.

"My fellow Espada. We leave to retrieve Arturo Plateado from his imprisonment ASAP."

AN:

Hey, it's another one of those "Ichigo becomes an arrancar" fan fictions that we're all the rage a while back. I'm a bit late to the party, but I also kinda wanted to try my own of these, just to sort of test the waters of FF. I'll probably end up continuing it though, as this seems like it'll be way too much fun too write hahaha

anyways peace out!


End file.
